The Phantomizing of Veterans

This is the 13th official volume of Findings Ezine/Magazine which has been undergoing a metamorphosis of sorts. This edition includes several articles that I wanted to publish back in December 2013. These select articles focus on the attitude in the academic and government circles regarding Black veterans of the United States Armed Forces.

The kick-off article “The Unleashing of Psychology Savages” covers a commencement which reveals to me that there are elements in society steering higher education degree holders to view Black veterans, particularly Black enlisted veterans, with suspicion.

The second article, “A Dream Foreclosed” is a report formulated from an event in one of Americas foremost Hispanic serving think tanks in Washington, DC. It is both stunning and disappointing to discover that this first rate group of Hispanic Intellectuals could conclude that the natural habitat for any Black person could or should be a shelter. Hispanics as a group are perhaps the foremost beneficiaries of the modern day Negro Removal Campaigns classified as ‘transformation-economic development-gentrification’ where millions of housing projects termed “condominiums” have been built up in previously Black majority areas of several cities. At the Center for American Progress event, the Hispanics had the audacity to suggest they are now Black People’s Brother’s [Zoo] Keepers.

Given the discoveries from the first two articles, the third and main article “The Phantomizing of Veterans” may well have been titled “The Phantomizing of Black Non-commissioned Officer Veterans” it is an open letter to Congress in support of House Resolution 1598, a bill sponsored by Representative Tim Griffin to overhaul the Veteran’s ID Card. That bill seems to currently be in the House Committee of Veterans Affairs. For its part, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs went ahead and overhauled the ID card for service members who are at least entitled to health care. It is somewhat of a step in the right direction, but the five or so years that I have had to wrestle with that Department just to get a replacement card leaves a sour taste in my collective experience.

These letters merely provide a peek into the systemic effect on veterans resulting from the institutional bias of the mind-molders in the education system who misdirect their adherents to target our fighting men and women to become the subjects of their occupations. Our veterans deserve better than this. The resultant denigration and phantomizing tactics like this are subversive policy effects that we as a society need to uproot and nullify.